JOHANNESBURG - Pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom said on Monday it was investing eight billion Egyptian Pounds (U.S.$400 million) over the next three years, as part of a major partnership with Telecom Egypt which includes network infrastructure and data centres.
This follows the signing of a landmark partnership agreement to mark the completion of Liquid Telecom's award-winning 'Cape to Cairo' network which represents the first direct land-based terrestrial fibre link between the two cities at opposite ends of the African continent.
Telecom Egypt is the first operator in that country providing all telecom services to its customers including fixed and mobile voice and data services.
It will use the network to connect Egyptian businesses to the rest of Africa, whilst also partnering with Liquid Telecom to build data centres across the country.
After an initial investment of U.S.$50 million in data centres and cloud services, Liquid Telecom plans to invest an additional U.S.$350 million in broadband and financial inclusion initiatives, as well as high capacity data centres, similar to some of the best-in-class data centres in South Africa.